Holding These Flowers
by Sandiane Carter
Summary: Castle takes Beckett to Hawaii. Sometime during season 6. Title is from The Weepies' lovely song "Painting by Chagall."


**A/N**: I promised chezchuckles that my next story would be something happy and light that she could actually read without feeling intensely sad. So this is for you, Laura. With all my love :).

* * *

The plane trembles. It's a very small thing, imperceptible, not nearly enough to make the seat belt flash red; yet Richard Castle can't help but clamp his hands around the armrests and shoot a nervous glance down the aisle. No sign of Beckett.

_Relax_, he tells himself. She just went into that tiny bathroom a minute ago. Nothing is going to happen to her in there. She's fine. Everything's fine.

He sucks in a deep breath and rests his head against the seat. He can't help it. He's wanted this so much, schemed and planned for it, and now that it's finally happening he can't help but think that something will come up and ruin it all. Someone could be murdered in this very plane and then Beckett, like the good detective she is, would have to investigate; Castle could find a way of breaking his other kneecap even without the help of a snowboard and a vicious pine tree. Or-

He's jerked out of his thoughts by a featherlight touch at his jaw. He glances up to find Kate looking down at him, her face soft in the plane's dim light. "You look so worried," she smirks. "Cheer up, Castle. We're on our way to Hawaii. That _is_ what you wanted, right?"

He turns his face into her hand, manages to brush a kiss to her palm before he sits up to let her through to her seat. He thinks it speaks volumes about his gentlemanliness that he let her have the window for the longest flight of the three. "It is," he says, watching the way her hair dances across her face as she sits, the graceful move of her fingers to push back the chestnut waves. "Everything I wanted. Yes."

Beckett clicks her seat belt together - such a sticker for the rules - and she looks at him with amusement sparkling in her eyes, a good dose of tenderness mixed in as well. "You did work pretty hard to get me on this plane."

"Admit it. You _liked_ going back to your apartment and finding your mailbox stuffed with Hawaii travel brochures."

"I think my favorite part of that was actually when old Mrs. Stinger came downstairs and slipped on one of your brochures and I had to drive her to the hospital and get her checked up. All this while apologizing profusely for my fiancé's crazy behavior. Yeah, now that I think about it, that really was the highlight of my week."

That word, _fiancé_. It flutters through him and paints everything gold, drowns out the rest. "You can't blame me for that," he protests, but his voice is too pliant, too warm. "How could I possibly know Mrs. Stinger would come downstairs right after you checked your mail?"

"You're lucky she didn't break anything," Kate says with a shake of her head. Still, he can see her mouth pressed tight into that almost-smile that he loves, and he can't help but lean forward and brush his lips to hers.

She lets a little huff against his mouth, but then her disapproval melts away and he can feel her answering kiss, her hand so light at his chest, the soft press of her lips and the elusive touch of her tongue.

A thought crosses his mind and he breaks away, chuckling to himself. "The brochures were pretty cool, that's true, but I wish I could've seen your face when Ryan and Esposito walked into the bullpen wearing flower leis."

Kate stares at him, looking like she wants to _maim _him - or maybe laugh with him, it's hard to tell. "And what exactly did you promise them in exchange for parading through the precinct wearing flowers around their necks?"

"Beckett, that's for me to know," he starts with a little smile, but then Kate's fingers curl around his ear, almost tender, and he gasps. "The Ferrari, the Ferrari. One month each. They get it for a month each."

She hums and lets go of him. "Really. I'd have thought for that kind of thing, they'd make you buy them their own Ferraris."

"Now, now, don't go giving them ideas," Castle says, lifting a protective hand to his ear. "Even my fortune has its limits, you know."

Kate gives him a pointed look. Right. He might have spent the last few weeks telling her that a trip to Hawaii means nothing to him and that his banker won't even notice.

"I mean-"

"In that case I'm glad I insisted on us flying business and not first class," she says, her smile a little too pleased. She knows she's won that one.

Ah, well. He'll fly business any day if it means a chance to whisk Kate Beckett away to an exotic island.

"I'm gonna read for a bit," she says, leaning forward to retrieve her book from the seat pocket. "You should watch the end of your movie." She nods to his paused screen and he lets his eyes drift back to it, almost surprised. Right. He was in the middle of some action-packed thing with more special effects than plot.

He puts the earphones back on and presses play, but finds it hard to gather any interest for the action unfolding on the screen. His gaze keeps flickering to Kate, to the adorable crease in her brow she always has when she's concentrating hard, to the depth of her dark eyes. He imagines he can see the story reflected on her face, the characters given life and breath by Beckett's rapt attention.

She lifts her eyes to him, says something. He hits pause again. "What?"

"I can feel you staring," she repeats, but she looks like she's fighting back a smile, and there's a kind of peace, a kind of certainty to her that he hasn't seen in a while.

"Sorry," he says, meaning nothing of it.

She knows that, of course - knows _him_ - but the smile gets out at last and she doesn't say anything else, just goes back to her book.

He continues to stare.

* * *

Kate wakes with a jolt, not knowing where she is or why the world around her is vibrating.

"Hey there, Sleeping Beauty," Castle's voice says next to her. She orients to his low rumble, rubbing her eyes, noticing the seats and the lights and the voice overhead saying something about the outside temperature in Honolulu.

"We there yet?" she croaks out. Whoa. She didn't mean to fall asleep.

"Just landed," he tells her, his hand reaching for hers and squeezing. "I was gonna wake you up, but you were so cute I wanted to let you sleep as long as I could."

Kate lets out a small grunt - only Castle would think she's cute when she's drooling all over him - and closes his eyes again, just for a second. There's too much light, too much noise, the powerful roar of the engine right under their feet.

"Kate?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she says, forcing her eyes open again at the concern in Castle's voice. "Just groggy. Must've been dreaming, I guess."

The plane's slowing down, low buildings now visible through the window, and Kate flips her hand palm up to lace her fingers with Rick's, excitement finally trickling down her chest. They're in _Hawaii. _

"We've got another flight in an hour," Castle's saying next to her, "so you'll be able to sleep some more if you want, even though it's only like forty minutes long..."

She nods her agreement and then stops listening, focusing instead on the turquoise water that delineates the horizon, the gorgeous mountains visible in the distance.

Holy crap.

She's spending her birthday in Hawaii.

* * *

Castle watches her closely as they wait to board their last plane, the one that'll take them straight to Maui. She still looks tired, even with the sunglasses doing such a good job of hiding the shadows under her eyes, but she looks happy too, her mouth open into a smile as the breeze whips strands of hair across her face.

His fiancée.

And she's here with him. He honestly wasn't sure she'd come - up until last week he was convinced that an interesting case would turn up and Kate would give him that sorry yet steely look and he would just have to go home and cancel all his bookings. She's been working even harder ever since she got back from DC, as if she's got something to prove, as if she has to make up for ever leaving the 12th. It makes Castle's heart ache to see it, see her poring over case files until deep in the night; Gates has had to send Beckett home more than once over the past two months.

She doesn't talk about it. She doesn't talk about the DC debacle, about her decision to quit her new job and come back to New York. She hasn't said anything about Senator Bracken, even though her mouth presses into a thin line when she sees him on TV, a kind of hollowness to her eyes that makes Castle's gut churn.

But she's here with him, and she's smiling, and that's the only thing he wants to be focusing on right now. So Rick moves a little closer, close enough that their shoulders touch and suddenly she turns to him, lifts up to brush a kiss against his mouth.

"Castle, this place is gorgeous," she says, something like gratitude in her voice. It silences him, makes his throat so tight, the deep endless love that rises inside him, the need to worship, touch, paint every inch of her body with his tongue.

_You're gorgeous_, he wants to say, but instead what comes out is: "And there's a lot more you haven't seen yet."


End file.
